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The Trial
Prologue (Leo) "You're a dirty cheat, Andrew and you can't stop me from telling everyone. You're not good at running really, are you? You had to cheat to be this good!" Andrew narrowed his eyes and stared at Aston. "I can stop you." Andrew slid a gun out from his inside pocket. Aston stepped back, fear flashing through his eyes. "You wouldn't... You'd go this far to stop people finding out you cheated?" Aston backed into a wall as the tall man stood over him. "All my life I've never been good enough for anything, and now I've got the perfect plan to become the best I'm not going to give it up for you, and your petty spying. You, Aston, you are the cheat! I know that you are cheating on Julia, and I know that's why you were spying on me. You thought she was cheating on you, with me!" "And yet your secret is bigger than mine." Aston tried to keep his voice level, but his shaking hands betrayed his fear. "If it's any consolation, I won't tell her." Andrew said, voice devoid of emotion, face flat, empty. He knew what he was about to do, and he felt no regret for it. Aston would only spoil his plans. He could not be allowed to live. And that was that. "Goodbye, Aston." Andrew squeezed the trigger with his gloved finged. Aston's body fell to the floor with a soft thump, splatters of blood decorating the floor and wall. A small pool was starting to form around his head. Andrew gently grabbed one of Aston's cold fingers, and smudged his fingerprints all over the gun, over the barrel, on the trigger and on the inside parts too before placing the dead man's hand back on the floor, the gun beside it, angled in such a way that looked as though it had been dropped. As far as anyone else would be concerned, all that had happened tonight would have been the suicide of Aston Smithson. Chapter One (Duck) Julia heard the phone ring and she jumped, ever since Aston's incident and that phone call she received from the police, she never felt comfortable answering the phone or even talking on a phone. She got up, deciding that she needed to answer the call, and reached towards her counter, rummaging through the piles of articles, textbooks, and food charts to find her cordless. She hated the confines of a corded phone, and preferred a cordless one. "Hello?" she said into the receiver, surprised at the gruffness of her own voice. "Hi! Miss Worth?" a very professional-sounding voice said on the other end of the line. "Yes?" Julia questioned, wondering who this could possibly be. "I'm Detective Fennel from the police department, and I need to ask you a few questions." the professional male voice said. "Alright," she replied, "But I thought Aston's case ended months ago, your department told me that they'd ruled his case as suicide." "Well we had, but in light of a new piece of evidence we know have reasons to believe that it was a homicide." "What new evidence?" she questioned the male, suddenly angry that they had to dig this issue back up, just when she was getting over it and getting on with her life. "Well fist I need to ask you some questions ma'am," the policeman replied. "No," Julia replied sternly, "don't you dare tell me that, Aston was my boyfriend, one of the best things in my life, when he died my heart was ripped into shreds and then stomped into the dust, do not tell me that you need to ask me questions first." "Miss Worth, Julia, may I call you that?" "Sure." "Well, Julia, due to new evidence we have reason to believe that you could have murdered your boyfriend," the detective replied. "That's preposterous," Julia shot back, running her hand through her long brown hair. "Julia, may I ask you a question?" the detective asked, and without waiting for an answer he said, "Does the name Nikki Greene mean anything to you?" Julia let out a sigh, why did that have to come up? Chapter Two (Leo) What was happening? It had been bad enough listening to the news three months ago after it had happened: "Death of popular athlete." But Andrew had held his nerve, and it had been written off as a suicide, just as planned. So why had they not left it alone. The newsreader kept talking through Andrew's internal rage, a striaght face and flat voice. "...after new evidence came to light. Julia Worth, who was thought to be close to Mr Smithson, has been taken in for questioning as the poilce believe this new evidence seems to point in her direction..." ''Interesting'', Andrew thought. ''Well, as long as they suspect her they won't suspect me.'' Actually, that was perfect. Not a suicide, but a murder. A murder by the jealous girlfriend, after having discovered she was being cheated on. ''Yes'', Andrew grinned. ''All the evidence is stacked against her''. After all, there was next to no reason for Andrew to have murdered Aston; he had barely known the man. Still, he had to be careful. If he got too confident that he wouldn't be caught he would, and that would be the end. All his hard work, all his research and planning would be wasted. And, of course, that shiny gold medal. Andrew got up to stare out the window, and not listen to the news. He left it on in case anyone else was around, listening. Careful. Suspicious if he turned it off the second Aston's death came on. Tomorrow he would go down to the track, and run, and run, and run. As long as he was running he wasn't thinking. And perhaps, if he were down at the practice track, training, then perhaps he would run into Julia. Maybe not tomorrow, but once she was released. One of the following days. There was only a week to the first round and about a month to the final. Andrew was certain he would win. Chapter Three (Duck) "Do you have time?" Julia asked the detective, "because this might take a while." "I have all day," Detective Fennel replied, Julia could hear the sound of the phone being moved and a chair being scraped across the floor through the telephone wire. "Nikki was what most would call a best friend of mine, we were neighbors growing up, our parents were best friends, I dated her brother, she dated my brother, we were friends in every sense of the word." Julia stated, her words faltering at the mixture of good and bad memories that bombarded her mind, "But not long after I came to trials and met Aston she started acting different." "How so?" the detective asked. "It was sorta awkward between us, we couldn't talk like we used to and when I even said the name Aston around her she got a scared look in her eyes. It was the same when I said Nikki by Aston." "Did you suspect something something was between them?" Fennel asked. "Frankly, not really, until one day I was taking a suit of Aston's to the cleaners and a slip of paper fell from his pocket, it was Nikki's number." Julia continued, feeling the sudden urge to start sobbing. ''No Julia,'' she reminded herself, ''you can't.'' "I confronted him about it, and the night he died, was the night that I had confronted him about it," she finished. "Oh, well thank you Julia, we'll keep in tough," Officer Fennel said, hanging up the phone, he had thought that Julia had killed him at first, but now he didn't know... Chapter Four (Leo) Andrew took a large drink out of his water bottle. He was tired after his run, but not as tired as he could be, and he hadn't run as fast as he could have done. A warm up. He was mostly down at the track in hope that he would bump into Julia, that she might be here for some reason. Perhaps to think of Aston, or some other silly sentimental thing. He did not care for such emotions, and he found that truly feeling pity or sadness was exhausting. He looked over to the spectator stands. She was there. He walked over. What would he say? They had been friends, before. They hadn't been best friends, but they hadn't barely known each other either. It wouldn't be so strange for him to go and say hello. Would it? "Julia?" he called as he approached. "Andrew?" She turned to look and smiled slightly. "Andrew! It's been ages since I last saw you. How are you; you're looking well." "It has been a long time, hasn't it?" he replied, sitting in the hard plastic seat next to her. "What brings you down here? Or is it not good to ask?" Her expression wavered. "No, it's fine. I actually just came down to watch before I go and train for a while." ''Of course'', thought Andrew. She was a swimmer, and a good one at that. "I forgot that you were a runner. You do the..." "1500 metres." he filled in. "Yes, that's it, I remember because Aston did the 800..." she trailed off, a pained expression crossing her face. "I'm so sorry that he died, I know he meant a lot to you." Andrew said, hoping his sympathy was convincing. How did people manage to be sympathetic all the time? It was awful. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just been incredibly hard... Every day at the moment comes a phone call from the police, I'm sure they think it was me, but why would it be? I didn't know Aston was cheating on me, and I'm sure he wouldn't have been seeing Nikki for long... I can't understand why anyone - least of all himself - would want to kill him." ''If only you knew that he was a liar, that he was a cheat and that he didn't love you. If only you knew how much someone would want to kill him...'' "I'm sure he hadn't," Andrew said. "I can't understand why they'd think it was you either. I can't think you would for a second." She smiled sadly at him. "If you'll excuse me, I have an event to train for. Perhaps I'll see you around." She got up and walked quickly away. Andrew grinned to himself. Now he had what he wanted: an ally. Chapter Five (Duck) She was doing what she did best, swim. Ever since a small child, Julia had known that she always wanted to be near or in the water, no matter if it was an ocean or a pool, she just loved it. But, even though she loved it, her limit was being pushed tonight. Every muscle ached as she climbed out of the pool and onto the hard cement beside, grabbing the simple white towel laying beside to dry off. She examined the bleachers in the stadium where the pool is and saw a very tanned girl with shoulder-length hair, blue eyes, and big lips get up, grabbing a purse and hurrying out. ''Oh no she doesn't!'' Julia thought, running, barefooted and still soaking wet, to the woman. The woman looked over her shoulder and started rushing even more, bringing her pace to a steady jog. "Nikki," Julia called to the woman, "we need to talk!" Nikki slowed, then came to an abrupt halt, "What do you want Julia?" "I can't talk now, but after I change can we go get a cup of coffee or something? I really need to talk to you." "I don't know," Nikki replied, hesitantly, glancing around. "Please," Julia said, "It's extremely important." "Well, okay, but please hurry," Nikki hesitantly replied after a few seconds, looking at her watch. Julia rushed to the changing rooms and threw on an off-white colored pair of shorts and a t-shirt on, slipping her sandals on as she rushed out, but as she emerged back into the arena Nikki was nowhere to be found. Chapter 6 (Leo)